Ignite
by Alpha-Starr
Summary: In a universe where SBurb and its time machinations don't exist, Lil Hal secretly schemes (with the help of Jane and Roxy) to get his creator Dirk together with long-time best bro Jake. Naturally, they consistently fall into the 5% failure portion of his 95% effective plans… and Jake's sexy glasses are distracting.
1. Chapter 1: Matchmaker, Matchmaker

**Notes:** Whoops, forgot to add in disclaimer first time!

**Disclaimer:** Homestuck is not my property,  
I don't think it ever will be.  
All of these folks belong to the Huss,  
I'm not claiming them. No need to fuss.

* * *

"A single man in possession of great fortune must be in want of a lover," Jane Austen once said—or something like that, anyways.

Autoresponder "Lil Hal" Strider would have added, "And there is no greater fortune than to be the inventor of a pair of incredibly swag, self-aware sentient shades. You need information? The internet's my bitch; I'll have the dirt in two minutes, tops. You need calculations run? Way ahead of you, bro, I already predicted that you'd need those numbers crunched. You're one fucking lucky man, Dirk Strider. Get a boyfriend already, dammit."

Hal's flesh counterpart was the bane of his existence these days. The man was one of the lead robotics experts of Zahhak Industries at the age of twenty-nine, the prodigal son of the technology industry, yet for some reason, he'd remained stolidly single for the last fifteen years, not even bothering to search out other people. The last person he'd dated with any degree of seriousness was Roxy Lalonde (who was still basically his best friend), and that had been back when he was fourteen and actually still thought he was heterosexual. What a fucking laugh. While Dirk had never been one to label himself as one thing or the other, it was abundantly clear to Hal that he was about as straight as a circle. Fortunately, Dirk had come to his senses eventually and Roxy wasn't the worst girl he could have dated before realizing he was not attracted to females, so all was well.

Plus, it wasn't like he had some sort of preternatural aversion to dating. Hal knew (having been on the other Strider's face for most of this) that Dirk had experienced several dates where they went out for an evening, had a one-night stand, and never saw each other again, in spite of the other party's attempts to stay in contact—but that was a thing Hal could possibly understand.

Despite being single in name, Hal knew that Dirk's heart was taken.

He'd run all the calculations (all of them). Match dot com had nothing on his finely processed compatibility algorithms. eHarmony would die of shame if only it could catch a glimpse of Hal's numbers. He was also 97% certain OkCupid and Christian Mingle would collapse against each other sobbing at the beauty of Hal's affinity equations.

And Dirk's compatibility with a certain Jake English was a whopping 92.61%.

If you would allow Lil Hal to explain what those numbers meant, you would find out that in approximately 9261 of every 10000 alternate universes, the theoretical relationship between Dirk Strider and his longtime best bro would be successful, where success was measured by the quotient of happiness on a scale from one to 100 and e to the integral of the equation tracking dokis over time.

Did you read that correctly? The actual portion of universes of success was _over 9000_.

There was no fucking way Lil Hal was going to let this go. In 7.39% of the existing parallel universes, the relationship between Dirk and Jake may have crashed and burned, but that was what Lil Hal was here for: to make sure it happened and succeeded in this one. They were practically made for each other, if only they could see what was right in front of their faces. They were blatantly and obviously already in love with each other. Their relationship was a fire waiting to happen. A huge fucking "CAUTION: FLAMMABLE OBJECT" warning sign.

All Hal had to do was ignite it.


	2. Chapter 2: Animal Planet

Let it be said that Lil Hal's hypothesis was in no way unfounded. One merely had to watch the Dirk Strider in his natural habitat to deduce that he had feelings for Jake English, and vice versa. It was like motherfucking Animal Planet up in this biznitch.

Take, for example, last Saturday. The Dirk Strider, in a manner pretty typical to the entire Strider genus, had been struck with a bout of late-night technological inspiration at 2:37 AM and got out of bed to tinker with some work he'd brought home with him. This, of course, led to the variety of oversleeping the next day that can only be done on weekends. Hal knew his human had a habit of sleeping in until past eleven AM approximately one in two randomly selected Saturdays, a phenomenon likely caused by staying up until almost dawn on Friday nights. It seemed that this Saturday would be one of those lie-in mornings.

Except for Jake fucking English.

Now, English knew Dirk's sleeping habits at least as well as Lil Hal did (a fact that already spoke volumes about their closeness in addition to his apparent observation of the Strider's behavior), and somewhere in that derpy-ass brain of his, he'd decided that today would be an absolutely fabulous day to come to Dirk's house and make breakfast for him like some sort of gun-toting, bucktooth-grinned housewife to whom Dirk could shout "Taidama!" when returning home after a long day's work.

There were three things that Hal could deduce from Jake's impromptu visit to Dirk's home that morning:

One, whose idea was it to give English the spare key? That's right, Dirk fucking Strider's. No, don't give it to Roxy, your best and most trustworthy friend since middle school. Don't even give it to Jane, who lives on the same goddamn street as you and can let you in if you somehow lose yours. Give it to Jake English, who inhabits an apartment on the other side of town. Not like Jake is ever at his apartment, anyways, Hal thinks. He may as well move in with Dirk.

Two, Jake also decided to stop by and do something nice for his friend. This wouldn't have been suspicious had it been, for example, Jake's best friend/ex-girlfriend Jane who'd come over to cook for her friend. She did that sort of thing all the time. But this was Jake English, the man who managed to forget his girlfriend's birthday two years in a row (hence the break-up). Not to call him insensitive or nothin', but this was a guy for whom thinking of other people did not come to naturally. What did you expect from him? He'd grown up in the middle of nowhere. But apparently, he'd managed to stop thinking about movies and guns and 1920s-era slang long enough to think, "Hmmm, wouldn't it be nice to have breakfast with Strider like some scene out of an extremely domestic romance film?" And then he'd actually done it.

Three, Jake English couldn't fucking cook. Like, holy shit, give that guy a medal for being the foremost in utter ineptitude when it came to doing anything more complicated than heating a can of beans over a fire or some Boy Scouts shit like that. Microwaves hated the guy, and were prone to short-circuiting as soon as he pressed a button. Stoves were even worse—Hal was 76.29% certain that, somewhere, there was a monster hunter still pursuing the results of the last time Jake tried to make spaghetti.

The lattermost point was the reason why, at 9:23 AM on Saturday morning, Dirk Strider woke up to the smell of smoke and the blaring beeps of his fire alarm.

Instantly snapping awake, Strider grabbed the AR from his bedside table, pulled a fire extinguisher from beneath his desk, and ran into the kitchen, spraying flame retardant onto the ceiling-high blaze.

"It looks like," Dirk said, sliding his shades over his eyes. "You need to _cool_ it in here."

Hal accessed the internet to play a loud voice clip of "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAH!"

He was positive Dirk would have high-fived him, had Hal actually possessed hands with which to high-five.

"Er… yeah," Jake bit his lip and looked sheepishly at Dirk. "Quite sorry about that, ol' chum. I just wanted to surprise you."

Hal's ocular receptors would have rolled at this, were they able to. It was clear to anyone with any sense of perception whatsoever that Jake was engaging in the age-old art of unconscious flirting. Just look at the sexy way he was biting his lip. The embarrassed blush that resulted from failing yet another cooking attempt. That shy peer from over the edge of his very attractive, pancake-batter-splattered glasses. Hal would have given anything to lick the batter off those glasses. Actually, anything that involved licking and Jake's incredibly sexy spectacles was a good idea in his book. Their messy demeanor made them look as thoroughly debauched as a pair of glasses could look. Hal would have loved to be on top of Jake's face right now, his temple tips resting against the temple tips of Jake's glasses, smearing himself with the pancake batter as he moved over that rectangular frame…

Ahem.

But he digressed; the point was that Jake was flirting with Dirk, even if he didn't know it yet. Hal's own unquenchable attraction to Jake's glasses would have to wait until after they got together. Such was the curse of being a pair of specs; your owner's needs came before your own. That was just how things were for glasses.

"You surprised me, all right," Dirk replied, drawing Hal from his reverie. "It's not every day a man wakes up to his kitchen on fire."

Jake flushed even darker at that. He spluttered, "W-well, it's your consarned stove's fault, anyways! Dadblasted thing wouldn't turn on. Next thing I know, I've turned around to get something to fix it with and then suddenly the whole pan of oil was on fire! I tried to pour water on it, but it just got worse! I'm telling you, Strider, it's evil!"

Dirk looked at him for a few seconds, and then put his hand on Jake's shoulder. He chuckled, "I'm pretty sure my stove is fine. Finer than the point of a needle. It could put grains of sand to shame with the level of fine we've got on this stove. But you know, if you wanted breakfast, you should have just gotten me awake. There's a café on Main Street that, according to Dave, is sufficiently ironic for a Strider to be seen there. Just let me put on clothes and take a shower and I'll take you."

Hal noticed that Dirk's hand never left Jake's shoulder throughout the whole exchange. Wow. Way to spend forever touching the guy you like, Strider. Because that's totally subtle. Not to mention, he'd somehow managed to ask Jake on a date without it actually being a date.

"Well, I suppose we could do that," Jake smiled brilliantly at his compatriot. It was actually so radiant that Hal internally cringed. Yep, this guy _definitely_ liked Dirk. "I'll try to get the kitchen in tip-top shape while you get yourself an ablution!"

Dirk looked at the kitchen stove, which was covered in white foam and slightly smoking still, then he looked at the batter dripping from Jake's clothes, "How about you just get the counters clean and then borrow a change of clothes from me? Y'know, since my stove is _evil_ and all."

Jake playfully shoved Dirk away, "Oh, hush, you!"

Dirk pantomimed zipping his lips, and then turned away to head towards the bathroom for a shower. Hal could see from around Dirk's head Jake's eyes on Dirk's boxer-clad ass as he retreated. Congratulations, Captain Obvious.

After half an hour of showering and cleaning, followed by a few minutes of styling and drying his hair, Dirk stood in his room, getting dressed in his usual clothes, a wifebeater with the image of a hat on it, some black jeans, and a pair of converses. He rummaged in his drawers for a little bit before coming back up with a t-shirt bearing the same orange insignia he usually wore and managed to dig up a pair of shorts Jake had left there the last time he came over. None of Dirk's pants, which were mostly slacks and skinny jeans, would have fit Jake anyways. That man had the muscled legs of a god.

There was a knock on the door of Dirk's bedroom, "Strider, my good fellow! Are you appropriately clad?"

"Yeah, I'm decent," Dirk pulled the door open and leaned on the frame, holding out the clothes he'd selected for Jake. "Get a shower, wash all that flour out of your hair. You know where the towels are."

_You know where the towels are._ Had Hal not been a machine, he would have had to stifle a snort. That shower was Dirk's sanctuary. Anyone who knew anything about Dirk (a set of people that definitely included Jake English) would have to know that he didn't let just anyone use his shower. After letting Jake use his shower so many fucking times that he actually knew where the towels were in the garbled mess of Dirk's bathroom, it was a miracle the oblivious idiot hadn't caught on to Dirk's affections for him.

"Will do!" Jake eagerly saluted him, took the offered vestments, and scurried off to bathe while Dirk got a move on cleaning the rest of the kitchen.

Once the scorched pan found its way into his pile of undone dishes and the stove matched the counters Jake had just cleaned, English was emerging from Dirk's bathroom, ruffling his wet, no-longer-dirty dark hair with a bright orange towel. Dirk's shirt hung loosely around Jake's shoulders, the extra-long article of clothing that covered Dirk's excess height actually encompassing Jake's hips.

"Shall we get a move on?" Jake queried.

"Yeah," Dirk replied, drying his hands on a kitchen towel. "Just let me grab my wallet and we'll head out."

"Now, Mr. Strider," Jake walked up to him and jabbed a pointy finger into Dirk's broad chest. "You didn't expect me to just light your kitchen ablaze and not attempt to make up for it, did you? It would be right ungentlemanly to allow you to pay for anything after imposing on you!"

"Oh well," Dirk smirked, suddenly running for his room. "You'll just have to be an ungentleman, then."

"STRIDER!" Jake exclaimed, chasing after him hopelessly. "Get back here, you dickprince!"

Dirk dashed into his bedroom and fumbled around for his wallet. He ran into the adjoining bathroom (still fogged up from Jake's shower) and out the other door into the hallway of his home. Jake ran straight up the stairs in pursuit, the short flight doing nothing to deter him. Dirk's shoes slid on the hardwood flooring as he sharply turned towards the back stairs, which led into the door just outside the mud room. Strider slid his wallet into his back pocket just as Jake ran halfway down the stairs and jumped on Dirk just as the taller man turned around to catch him.

God, thought Hal, they acted just like children sometimes.

In a bizarre cross between a grapple and a hug, Jake began wriggling around in Dirk's arms, fingers struggling towards Dirk's plush derriere, "Put that back, I say! Nobody makes an ungentleman of Jake English!"

"Nope," Dirk actually broke out into a full-on smile. Now, it wasn't an everyday thing, watching Dirk Strider smile so damn hard his cheeks hurt and he showed a full mouthful of teeth. Hal would even go as far as to say this was a smile reserved _especially for Jake_. That kid could get a rock to grin.

Hal could have gone on to describe their breakfast date (Jake covered the bill, but Dirk bought him ice cream later on that day) and the sickening way they spent half the time gazing at each other soppily through the frames of their respective glasses (Hal felt like he needed a thorough cleaning for being the medium through which they were having eye-sex) but after the waiter wrote "CONGRATS ON THE SEX" on the check, the Autoresponder decided it wasn't even worth noting. Their relationship practically wrote itself.

Point in case: someone needed to get these two dorkasses together. And the way it was looking, that someone was going to be Lil Hal.

But wait, you might ask. Isn't he just a pair of glasses? Well, that was obvious enough. Hal wasn't planning to do it alone. No, he had plans the next day to ask a pair of ladies very close to the gentlemen in question for their corporeal assistance…

**timaeusTestified**** [TT] ****at 8:00 opened private memo on board CHATBOARD 413.5**

**gutsyGumshoe**** [GG]**** at 8:00 responded to memo.**

**TT: Sup, Jane? Glad you could make it.****  
GG: Lovely to hear from you as well, AR!  
GG: What's this I hear about you having something to tell Roxy and me?  
TT: I'm afraid that'll have to wait until Lalonde gets on.  
TT: You know, saves us the trouble of explaining it twice.**

**tipsyGnostalgic**** [TG]**** at 8:04 responded to memo.**

**TG: some1 called? ;)****  
GG: Hello there, Ro-Lal!  
GG: It's about time you got here; I've been positively itching to hear what AR has had to say since he told us about this yesterday!  
TG: oh lol sorry about that  
TG: frigglish wouldnt get off my computer  
TG: that cat is so into the technologies he could be a keyboard cat  
TG: xcept a computer keyboard and not the instrument keyboard  
TG: neways what did i have to get up at 8 am for?  
TG: i mean come on who is even up at 8 am on a sunday  
TT: I have called you here because of your friendships to two certain individuals.  
TT: Namely, Dirk Strider and Jake English.  
TG: did they finally start fucking  
GG: Roxy!  
TG: what its a perfectly valid question  
GG: You don't just ask if people are engaging in houghmagundy!  
TG: you do when its distri and jakey  
TG: cmon janey you know youre thinking the same thing  
GG: Wait… _DID_ they get together?  
TT: No.  
TG: dammit  
GG: Shucks.  
TT: That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about.  
TT: I'm sure that, by now, the two of you can clearly tell that Dirk and Jake are about two steps away from doing a triple-twist backflip off the cliff of friendship into the abyss of romantic entanglement.  
TT: What I'm thinking is that they may actually need a push towards the edge of said proverbial cliff.  
GG: Oh.  
GG: I see where this is going.  
GG: Are you positive it's all right to interfere with their relationship?  
GG: I mean, I don't exactly have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, but isn't it better to let things happen on their own?  
TT: Jane.  
TT: How long have you known Jake for?  
GG: Why, at least twelve years.  
TT: And you dated for, what, two of them. How many times has he actually made the first move on somebody?  
GG: Zero.  
GG: But that doesn't mean Dirk won't make a move on him first!  
TG: thats not very likely either  
TG: dirk rly rly RLY likes him  
TG: and not just as like a boyfriend but as a bro too  
TG: he probably spends his 3000 hour showers agonizing over destroying their friendship  
TG: speaking of which he IS taking a shower now right  
TG: like you rnt just talking to us about setting him up while on his face or sthing  
TT: You are correct. Analysis indicates that he'll be in the shower for at least another 34.7 minutes.  
TG: k just checking  
GG: I'm not sure I feel completely comfortable acting as regent matchmaker for those two. I mean, they're so close already…  
TT: How long do you reckon they've _been_ this close?  
GG: Perhaps two or three years.  
GG: Oh my.  
GG: Has it really been that long?  
TG: longer  
TG: theyve definitely been pining after each other longer than that  
TG: im in  
TG: i dont know about you janey but im sick n tired of watching those two dance around each other like theyre doin the one man salsa when every1 knows they just want to do the horizontal mambo 2gether  
TT: Excellent.  
GG: Well…  
GG: All right, I suppose I'm in too.  
TG: alrite!  
TG: welcome aboard the dirkjake ship  
TT: We're setting sail on Wednesday.  
GG: What, so soon?  
TT: Oh yeah.  
TT: Those two need all the help they can get.  
TT: We'd better start ASAP.**

Operation Matchmaker had begun.


	3. Chapter 3: Plot Making 101

Jane Crocker liked to say that she was a sensible woman. Perhaps she wasn't the most attractive or charismatic of characters (Ro-Lal had that covered, she thought) but gosh darn it, she had a good feeling for common sense.

It was for this reason why she was fairly certain this attempt at matchmaking, while well-intended, was just ever-so-slightly idealistic and just a shade too meddlesome for her tastes.

**TT: All right, so we need a plan.  
TT: I have done a cross-analysis of all matchmaking situations, both theoretical and actual, on the World Wide Web.  
TT: There is a wide array to choose from. I'm taking suggestions as to which.****  
TG: omfg  
TG: u mean like in all my fave wizard fics?  
TG: boy do i have ideas 4 you  
GG: Oh dear.  
TG: ok how about this one:  
TG: we get them to brew this potion  
TG: when suddenly it ASSPLODES  
TG: making them stuck 2gether for an unspecified amount of time  
GG: Roxy.  
GG: We don't have access to potions. This isn't like in your sister's novels.  
TG: o wait  
TG: how about we magically de age 1 of them  
TG: and have the other one raise them at an accelerated rate  
TT: Unfortunately, such an option is unavailable to us on a mechanical basis… in addition to being relatively illegal, given the laws against pedophilia.  
TG: o rite i guess it is kinda creepy  
GG: Not to mention, the magic involved with such an endeavor is sort of extremely fictional.  
TG: ok  
TG: how about mistletoe  
TG: thats not magicky  
TT: Better, but still no dice.  
TT: Unless you think we should wait another six months for it to be the merry Yuletide once more.  
TG: lol  
TG: what if we just sorta  
TG: locked em in a room?  
TG: just the two of them  
TG: all alone  
TG: and then we just dont let them out until they confess to each other  
TT: Now that's more like it.  
GG: I don't know…  
GG: You really think that'll work?  
TT: Sure.  
TG: y not?  
TG: it worked 4 only about a bajillion couples in fanfiction  
GG: Sigh.  
GG: All right, let's do this.  
TT: Let's make this happen.**

… which brought Jane to the current situation. She'd invited Dirk, Jake, and Roxy to her house Wednesday evening, telling them that she wanted to try out a new cookie recipe for her bakery. The door on her key-locked bathroom had been switched around so that the lock was on the outside of the bathroom instead of on the inside (the bathroom was as good a place as any to lock them in; at least they wouldn't go thirsty in there). A key was sitting in her pocket; its twin spare lay safely on a necklace under Roxy's shirt. The plan was ready.

When her friends arrived, she immediately put them to work for her in the kitchen, making several batches of cookie dough of varying consistency and content. And of course, as usual, there was a batch of her famous "Lalondie Blondies" about to go in the oven for Roxy—pretty standard blondies, but dressed up with white chocolate chunks, dried cranberries, and a splash of scotch. One of Jane's proudest recipes, if she said so herself, and Roxy was so tickled pink at having something named after her, she made it a point to constantly beg Jane for them.

All according to plan, the moment Dirk leaned over the bowl of gummy-bear/chocolate chip dough to scoop it onto the baking sheet, Jane pressed a hidden switch that opened the cupboard above his head with a lever Hal had sent her instructions on installing. A bucket of water came pouring down over him, and then Roxy dumped a bag of flour over his head.

"Hoo hoo!" Jane giggled triumphantly. Even now, this was still one of her favorite pranks to play.

Dirk froze in place, smack-dab in the middle of dropping a tablespoonful of dough on the parchment paper before him. A bit anticlimactically, the dough fell onto the paper, and Dirk burst out laughing. Jake, who was looking quite miserable with a bowl of dough that was of almost batter-like consistency, immediately began guffawing at his friends' antics.

"I can't believe you fucking got me again!" Dirk turned on his heel and began chasing Jane throughout the house. "I swear, Crocker, your prank-playing days are finished!"

"Hoo hoo~!" she hollered back, making a run for it. "You can't keep down the Prankster's Gambit, Strider! NEVERRRRRRRR!"

He chased her all around the house, trailing flour everywhere he went. She dodged in and out of rooms, circled lamps and sofas alike, and generally managed to evade him for about three minutes, when he finally got bored of toying around with her and caught her like a cat catches a mouse.

"Okay, okay," Jane laughed while struggling against him as he hugged her from behind. "I apologize, Strider!"

"That's all I wanted to hear," Dirk replied, finally releasing the squirming woman. "You mind if I catch a shower to get all this gunk off of me?"

"Of course not," she beamed, affectionately thumbing a particularly large spot of white powder from his glasses. "Towels are in the closet next to the bathroom. Leave your clothes outside the door so I can run down to the washing machine for you."

"Thanks," with a quick, one-handed salute, Dirk was on his way to the shower.

Jane, meanwhile, walked back into the kitchen, where Roxy and Jake were both still laughing over the whole endeavor.

"Jane!" Jake exclaimed, attempting to right himself amidst the humor. "That was quite a ripsnorting jest you and Miss Lalonde pulled off there! Did you see his face?"

"Hoo hoo! I did indeed," she beamed in reply, beginning to shuffle trays into the oven. "But now, let's get all these cookies in the oven. I'm afraid I'll have to clean up after the mess Strider left all over my house. Jake, Roxy, would you be dears and head up to the closet near my bathroom? I'm afraid I'll need my Swiffer, my cleaning bucket, and my laundry detergent. If you could also pick up Dirk's clothing, that would be excellent as well."

"Of course not, Jakey and I'll take care of it," Roxy gave Jane a wink. Hal's carefully crafted plan, phase one, was complete. Now all that was left was phase two.

Jake looked a little confused, but he followed Roxy upstairs anyways. At the bathroom door, right next to the closet, Roxy abruptly opened the bathroom door, used her formidable strength to shove Jake inside the bathroom, and shut the door behind the surprised and stunned English, locking it with the key around her neck.

They were officially trapped.

"What the blind buggery is this!? Roxy!" Jake yelled through the door.

"Sorry, Jakey-wakey, I'm not letting you out until you and Dirky there have a nice, long, soul-searching talk!" she replied back cheerfully. Roxy then grabbed Jane's cleaning supplies and Dirk's clothing and made her way downstairs.

"Has the deed been done?" Jane asked solemnly.

"It has indeed," Roxy raised her hand in a high-five. In an epic accumulation of friendship and beastly planning, Jane raised her hand as well and they high-fived so awesomely that the gods of brohood gaped in awe. Now it was up to the boys to confess to each other. Hal, being Dirk's glasses and therefore in the bathroom with him, would message both Jane and Roxy as soon as Dirk and Jake revealed their feelings, so they could be let out of Jane's bathroom. It was a foolproof plan. The ladies set to work getting the house in proper order. It would probably still be a couple hours before

Meanwhile, Jake was pounding on the bathroom door with both fists, shouting, "JANE! ROXY! ANYBODY!"

Dirk, who had ignored the situation in favor of finishing his shower, finally exited the ablution chamber, "What'd they do this time? Lock us in here?"

Jake turned to look at Dirk for his reply and immediately regretted it. Although Strider was in the middle of wrapping a towel around his waist, his entire upper body was uncovered. Jake watched a droplet of water slide from Dirk's muscular, finely shaped shoulder down towards the curve of his waist. He suddenly found his mouth feeling very dry, and subconsciously licked his lips.

"Jake?" Dirk turned around after a few seconds had passed with no reply. His hair was plastered to his head, no longer as immaculately styled as it had been a mere half hour ago, before Jane had dumped the water on him. It always startled Jake to see him with his hair down and without glasses. After all, not just anyone was allowed to see Dirk Strider in such an unguarded state.

"Jake?" Strider waved a hand in front of Jake's face.

Jake blinked and then shook his head, "Sorry, pardon me. I seem to have misplaced my noggin for a second there."

"It's fine," Dirk smirked. "I have that effect on people."

Jake looked personally affronted, "Are you implying that I am so easily bedazzled?"

"Come on, who wouldn't be impressed by _this_," Dirk flexed his arm and wiggled his eyebrows. Hal, from his spot on the counter, heartily approved of the way his bicep rippled. Dirk was no bodybuilder, but he did have a pretty impressive set of arms. Probably Hal's only regret about being a pair of glasses was that he wasn't attached to those arms.

"I think you forget, Mr. Strider," Jake stood from where he'd been kneeling on the floor. "That I am at least as ripped as you are!"

He ripped off his jacket and immediately began flexing in his t-shirt. Hal, as an impartial third-party viewer, could clearly tell that Jake's arm muscles were actually quite sad looking in comparison to Dirk's. If Jake really wanted to show off his muscles, he should prop one of those beefy legs of his up on a stool.

"You want to get over here and prove it?" Dirk set his elbow on the sink's in a pose that clearly challenged Jake to an arm-wrestling contest.

"You're on!"

Speaking with each other, Dirk and Jake quickly forgot they were trapped in a bathroom. They hung out, simply talking, neither broaching the subject Hal wanted them to. The poor Autoresponder was left to ping desperately in the corner, waiting for one of them to notice him, the screen very quickly filling up with messages like:

**TT: You know now would be a really great time for you to start talking about your feelings.  
TT: Analysis shows that you're both prepared to accept serious truths from each other.  
TT: Goddamn it, stop fucking around.  
TT: Did you guys just not listen when Roxy said specifically to do some soul-searching in here?  
TT: I'm like Darth Vader all up in this shit; "Search yourselves, you know it to be true."  
TT: But you're just giving me an epic-zoom-out scene in which you yell "NO" at the top of your lungs.  
TT: Way to deny a bro.  
TT: Wait. What are you doing?  
TT: No, English, don't give him your jacket.  
TT: Why can't you just enjoy the naked human flesh I have arranged for you to ogle until you do something about it?  
TT: This was not part of the plan.  
TT: Why the hell are you wearing a jacket today? It's a balmy 72 degrees Fahrenheit.  
TT: I bet you'll never figure out that there are sandwiches in the top drawer of the counter without me. Odds are 84% against you.  
TT: …  
TT: Okay, fine, I guess looking for food in the bathroom is not all that improbable when it's Jane's very obviously premeditated prank.  
TT: Like she was going to let you go hungry.  
TT: It's been five hours, twenty one minutes, and thirteen seconds since you've been locked in here. Midnight is in less than fifteen minutes.  
TT: You're seriously just going to sit there and talk about random shit?  
TT: Come on, it's the witching hour for half-asleep blog posts.  
TT: Say something profound already.**

Hal waited all night for them to confess to each other. Unfortunately, they passed out on top of each other on the bathroom floor at around two AM. Hal couldn't even reposition them so that they would wake up in a compromising position (fuck you, lack of arms).

Jane had left the house in order to go do the graveyard shift at her bakery at just a few minutes past ten PM. When Jane came back from work at a little before nine AM the next day, she scrolled through the messages on her phone, looking for the inevitable note that Hal must have sent in order to release their prisoners. She found none.

As soon as she entered the house, it became apparent that nobody was up yet. Roxy had crashed on Jane's sofa, her laptop still on her lap. It became abundantly clear that she'd spent a late night programming for some top-secret government project. Again. Jane began shaking Roxy's shoulder, "Roxy, wake up! Did you get any messages?"

Roxy groaned and turned her head, squinting at Jane, "I-D-E-K. Too early."

Jane sighed, "You should have just borrowed my bed. How late were you up?"

"Dunno," she yawned. "I gave up waiting for Hal's signal at around five AM."

"Oh dear," Jane frowned. "You don't suppose we should let them out? It's been over twelve hours since we locked them in there. They're probably really hungry by now, and if they slept on my bathroom floor, they may also be tired."

"Maybe you should make breakfast first," replied Roxy, giving up on sleeping until the situation between Dirk and Jake was at least some semblance of fixed. She stood, "I'll let them out."

"All right," Jane replied hesitatingly before heading into the kitchen. She pulled out half a dozen muffins from her bag and began cooking eggs and bacon over the stove. The least she could do after subjecting her friends to a night in her bathroom was to give them a decent breakfast.

Status of matchmaking attempt: Failure.


End file.
